The Sunday night before Ted Kennedy`s announcement to enter the Democratic presidential primary, Joan Kennedy and I took a break from working to watch the CBS-TV hour-long special report, ``Teddy.`` Several weeks earlier, Roger Mudd had enlisted Ted`s cooperation in the project and asked for two interviews, one to take place at Kennedy`s Cape Cod home with his family, and the other in his Senate office. The senator agreed and

arrangements were made to send a crew of TV camera operators to cover a family weekend at Hyannis Port on Sept. 29, 1979.

The senator`s staff then called each of the children and Joan to ensure that every member of the family would be there. But Joan didn`t feel up to the immense preparation required for a ``casual`` weekend in front of TV cameras. Kara and Teddy Jr., had other plans and didn`t appear either.

The TV crews arrived, the senator and his staff arrived, but with no touch football or family fun to capture on camera, Roger Mudd sat down with the senator in captain`s chairs on the lawn overlooking the ocean for what the senator`s staff later referred to as an impromptu interview.

When it was over, and the crew, equipment and Mudd were on their way back to New York, Ted called Joan in Boston, a rare occurrence. She reported that he said he had never felt so let down in his life, because the family had not come to the Cape and he didn`t think the interview with Mudd had gone well. We understood the disappointment of not having his family around him when he needed them. But it wasn`t until the night of Nov. 4, as we watched the interview on the air, that we fully comprehended the reason for his concern.

Mudd was a sympathetic interviewer, although he, too, seemed unprepared for the occasion. His questions were ones the press had asked the senator before, which made it even more surprising that Ted`s answers indicated no advance preparation. The senator appeared uncomfortable, shifted in his chair and did not look directly at Mudd or the cameras. Even more devastating, his replies to Mudd`s questions were both vague and inarticulate.

When Mudd asked, ``What`s the present state of your marriage?`` Joan and I edged closer to hear his answer. Ted became uneasy. He said that he and Joan had had ``some difficult times,`` but had ``been able to make some very good progress.`` Joan and I glanced at each other quickly and then watched Ted, anxiously wondering what he would say. Still trying to define their relationship, he continued, ``It`s . . . I would say that it`s . . . it`s . . . it`s . . . I`m delighted that we`re able to share the time and the relationship that we . . . that we do share.``

Next, Mudd recalled a remark Ted had made just after the accident at Chappaquiddick, when he said he felt ``an awful curse hanging over the Kennedy family.`` Ted now responded that he felt his life had been more normal in the past 10 years and he`d been able to put the tragic events of those years into perspective.

At this point in the telecast, the interview was interrupted in order to allow CBS cameras, with a voice-over by Mudd, to re-create the scene on Chappaquiddick Island. Mudd explained that he and a camera crew had gone to the island, and Mudd himself drove the car repeatedly over the route to relive as a driver the actual road and light conditions Kennedy would have experienced. Finally, the camera crew had attached a camera to the car`s left fender, and with only the car`s headlights to light the way, had retraced the route that Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne had taken the night of July 18, 1969. The interview continued, as Mudd suggested that Ted might want to ``say something more to illuminate in people`s minds what indeed went on that night, other than saying it`s all in the record?``

The senator answered, ``Oh, there`s . . . the problem is . . . from that night . . . I found the conduct, the er, ah, er the behavior almost beyond belief myself. I mean that`s why it has been . . . but I think that`s . . . that`s . . . that`s the way it was. That . . . that happens to be the way it was. Now I find it as I have stated that I have . . . that the conduct that . . . that evening in . . . in this as a result of the impact of the accident of the . . . and the sense of loss, the sense of hope and the . . . and the sense of tragedy and the whole set of . . . circumstances, that the er, ah, behavior was inexplicable. . . .``

Joan and I waited silently through a commercial break before the special returned to the next interview held in Kennedy`s Washington office on Oct. 12. For the few remaining minutes of the program, Joan and I never took our eyes off the screen as we watched in disbelief Ted`s answers disintegrate with each question. Then, as the program ended and the credits started to run, Joan reached over and snapped off the TV.

Sitting on the floor, Joan leaned back against the couch. In a voice barely above a whisper, her arms hugging her knees, she began to talk about Chappaquiddick, reliving every moment of its effect on her. She and the children had been at their Cape home when it happened.

``No one told me anything. Probably because I was pregnant, I was told to stay upstairs in my bedroom. Downstairs the house was full of people, aides, friends, lawyers. Ted called his girlfriend before he or anyone ever told me what was going on. It was the worst experience of my life. I couldn`t talk to anyone about it. No one told me anything. I had to stay upstairs and when I picked up the extension phone, I could hear Ted talking to her.`` She shook her head and looked away. ``Nothing ever seemed the same after that.``